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Anthropogenic-driven changes to the hydroclimate will impact on water resources. For example, rainfall changes will affect crop yields and food production; snow and ice, which melt to feed major river systems, are at risk with warming. More than one-sixth of the global population rely on melt-fed river catchments, and this resource is at risk as climate change is likely to cause greater seasonal variability — higher winter flows, because of earlier melt, and reduced summer and autumn flows. Additionally, higher temperatures, and resultant increased biological activity, could lead to decreased water quality. All these changes could occur alongside increased populations and economic development, creating greater demand for a diminishing resource.

The potential for water resource scarcity to lead to conflict, particularly between nations, is the question Michael T. Klare of Hampshire College, Amherst, USA, considers by examining the available research. While within-country water conflicts have been considered and identified as climate change risk, international conflict has received less attention. Globally, many nations share river catchments, and these may not be covered by an agreed cooperative management framework. Conflict between nations over water could trigger secondary engagement from additional nations in an attempt to resolve the conflict.

The end of humankind? It may be coming sooner than we think, thanks to hormone–disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility at an alarming rate around the globe.

A new book called “Countdown,” by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, finds that sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973.

The collapse of civilization in the next few decades is imminent, and it could be triggered by a variety of factors, Paul Ehrlich told Sputnik.

"It could be caused by a nuclear war, droughts and floods leading to mass starvation, a bursting of the debt bubble, political unrest from refugee flows or increasing economic inequity, trade wars, terrorism or synergizing combinations of these and other factors," the researcher said.

1.6 UBI: from flat tax to progressive personal consumption tax

Mirrlees’ (1971) redistributive theory of optimal income taxation is the dominant tax theory. The optimal income tax depends on the distribution of abilities, and it assumes that income is the only indicator of ability. Distaste for inequality and the responsiveness of work and effort to incentives are core factors. For instance, Hoynes and Rothstein (2019) state that given rising inequality and the motivation of offsetting increasing income shares of capital owners, one might prefer to finance UBI through a more progressive tax. In public finance textbooks, the central issue in the design of fiscal policy is this trade-off between equity and efficiency. Marginal tax rates discourage exerting effort, generating efficiency costs (Mankiw, Weinzierl & Yagan, 2009). The optimal tax is a lump-sum tax6 , for it does not result in changes of behaviour or in relocation of resources. The flat income tax concerns the same marginal tax rate for all income earners. To keep it simple, the flat tax should be combined with a lumpsum transfer for the lower income earners and is close to optimal (Atkinson, 1995; Mankiw, Weinzierl & Yagan, 2009; Islam & Colombino, 2018). The level of the flat rate is a political decision. A high flat rate implies the priority is to fight poverty; the tax burden is shifted from low to high income earners, protecting the vulnerable groups (equity). A low flat rate (efficiency) implies the tax burden is shifted from high to low income earners.

The United States currently has one of the highest levels of inequality among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as measured by the Gini coefficient before taxes and transfers. The U.S. Gini coefficient before taxes is 0.49, measured on a scale in which 100 is perfect in equality (one person has all the income) and 0 is perfect equality. Figure 1 shows that the U.S. Gini is higher than most of the other members of the OECD, and it is also higher than many developing countries (e.g., India).

This level of inequality would not matter if social mobility in the United States were high, because in that case every U.S. child could achieve the "American Dream." However, a recent OE pointed out: "Mobility in earnings across pairs of fathers and sons is particularly low in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, while mobility is higher in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada" (OECD 2010, 183). The United States ranked third from the bottom among the twelve countries studied. The main reason was that it ranked first in the influence of parental background on student achievement in secondary education (OECD 2010, figure 5.3). In general, the OECD found that intergenerational social mobility tends to be lower in more unequal societies (OECD 2010, figure 5.10).

In the past 500 million years, the planet has experienced five mass extinction events, each of which wiped out most of the species on the planet. Only one was caused by an asteroid, with the other four being driven by greenhouse gases. Studying the carbon cycle changes that led to these extinction events, geophysicist Daniel Rothman concludes that the threshold for a sixth extinction event is when more than 310 gigatons of carbon are added to the oceans. On a business-as-usual trajectory, human carbon emissions are currently on track to add 500 gigatons by 2100.

Extreme meteorological events are bumping up against the limits of existing weather scales. Following record-breaking heat in 2013, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology added two new colors to its temperature maps, raising the top temperature from 122°F (50°C) to 129°F (54°C). After Hurricane Harvey, the U.S. National Weather Service added two new shades of purple to its rainfall maps, raising the upper limit from 15 to 30 inches. Meteorologist Jeff Masters proposes that the existing five-category hurricane scale be expanded by including a category six hurricane — what he described as a “black swan” storm.

Manifestations of economic malaise—stagnant growth, stagnant employment numbers and job losses—will have disturbing political consequences. They can lead to political extremism, usually under the guise of right-wing populism, but the left-wing version shares some commonalities. When populism reaches a fever pitch, it tends to vilify pluralistic values associated with liberal democracy and rule of law. Populists of both extremes are united in their callousness or antipathy toward foreigners and against domestic elites. That creates an opening for authoritarian demagogues who denounce their political opponents as elitists, and embrace prejudice against disadvantaged minorities, while praising redistribution of wealth from rich to poor not based on the rule of law, as in China and Russia.

In emerging markets—leaving aside outright dictatorships in some of the poorest countries—authoritarians now run governments in Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Hungary, the Philippines, Brazil, Venezuela, Kazakhstan and China, among others. Cascading megathreats will only make that list grow longer.

This report explores issues at the intersection of international relations, conflict studies, and longtermism.l In it, we draw extensively on the mainstream international relations literature but focus specifically on understanding the potential effects of war on the long-term future. Taking a long-term view focuses our attention on the risk a Great Power war poses to humanity's future potential. Extinction, an unrecoverable collapse of civilization, or a permanent end to humanity's growth and progress would all destroy the long-term potential of our species. We call events that could lead to one of these scenarios existential risks .2 Such an event, if it occurred, would be unprecedented in human history. It would cause unimaginable suffering for everyone alive today and extinguish any possibility for trillions of our would-be descendants to live happy lives.

Some of these global catastrophic risks, like an asteroid impact, are direct risks. By contrast, Great Power conflict is a risk factor: it is connected to multiple other risks, and raising or lowering the amount of conflict affects the seriousness of the threats we face in these other areas. In section 4 of this report we consider several concrete pathways through which Great Power conflict poses a global catastrophic risk. We will sort these pathways into three broad categories.

Of course, it should be noted that the societal and cultural situations that we face today are quite a bit different than those of the 1930’s. But it is also worth noting that it was mass unemployment in Germany during the Great Depression that undergirded the events that led to the Second World War. Those who remember history will also remember that – once the Great Depression hit the United States – it lasted a decade and the unemployment rate in America didn’t drop below 10% until after the U.S. entered the Second World War and began mass military production which reinvigorated the economy.

Obviously, given the modern advances in warfare, a potential Third World War would devastate humanity. But assuming that global war can be avoided, a loss of jobs of this magnitude would likely still shake the foundations of society creating new levels of unimagined poverty, increased income inequality between the rich and the poor and heightened racial & ethnic divisions. What makes things worse is that global governments are wildly unprepared even if this type of scenario transpires in the mildest of ways.

We nevertheless cling to the illusion that the capitalist state can become a benevolent entity. National health programs, championed by activists like me, are components of a generous welfare state, as are public education, housing, livable wages, adequate food, transportation, and more.7 The modern welfare state took hold in several European countries after the Great Depression and further expanded after the Second World War, as an emerging Keynesian consensus encouraged high levels of government spending. These welfare states also became models for development in some countries of the global South. But the capitalist welfare state has always suffered from inherent contradictions. First, its services and programs remain vulnerable to cuts or elimination during economic crises, as the recent turn toward austerity in much of Europe has shown.8 Important public programs of the welfare state shrink or disappear as that other key function of the capitalist state—protecting the capitalist economic system—gears up to address the system’s recurrent crises. Second, these welfare services also contribute to a false consciousness and hegemonic beliefs about the capitalist state’s beneficent potentialities. This ideological impact has been called the state’s “legitimation function.”9 By providing helpful and even vital services, the capitalist welfare state legitimates the continuing inequality and exploitation inherent in the system.10 Many of us respond to the suffering we encounter everywhere by advocating for the expansion or, at least, the maintenance of the capitalist state’s welfare protections. We do so even though we understand that they remain perpetually vulnerable and legitimate a system that inherently causes exploitation, inequality, hunger, ill health, and early death. And we persist in advocating for the welfare state although we know that what people in the global South call “savage capitalism” has become weaker and more desperate amid deepening economic crises, a loss of political legitimacy, and environmental devastation that threatens the survival of humanity and other life forms.

I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but I think it’s around 200 billion. It’s a lot of money. People sometimes understate the size of the Social Security deficit. They’ll say, “Well, it’s a modest deficit. It’s a manageable problem.” When you’re the 800-pound gorilla of the federal government, even a seemingly small problem is a big one. Long-term, Social Security is underfunded by between 20 and 25 percent. When you’re the biggest federal program, that’s a problem. Think of a reform package. There’s roughly half tax increases, half benefit cuts. You could, say, raise the taxable maximum salary, which is currently $160,000, to $300,000. That’s a big tax increase for people in that income range. Raise the payroll tax rate by about a percentage point, from 12.5 to 13.5 percent. On the benefit side, raise the retirement age, cut cost of living adjustments, cut benefits for higher-income people: You had to do all of those things together and more to make the system solvent. The problem is, any one of those changes is politically infeasible. So we’re really in a box.

As first reported by Semafor, the group is led by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Angus King (Maine), an independent who aligns himself with Senate Democrats. The group is formulating a bill to slash Social Security, and raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 is a serious consideration. Other options reportedly include tweaking a benefits formula that allows people with low incomes to collect a minimum threshold of benefits to instead take into account the amount of years worked, or expand the agency’s ability to invest wealth into private stocks, rather than the current trust fund model. If the investment fund didn’t generate a certain amount of return, the plan would increase the tax cap for Social Security and the tax rate itself. The lawmakers claim that they’re looking at benefit cuts and reforms due to concern over the solvency of Social Security — though Republicans have been clear that their intentions are to slash benefits and force people to depend on work to survive for even longer into old age. Republican lawmakers have been pretending in public that they are opposed to cutting programs like Social Security and Medicare, perhaps because they know that doing so would be extremely unpopular. When President Joe Biden mentioned GOP plans to cut Social Security and Medicare in his State of the Union address, Republicans responded with jeers and outrage. But, in reality, many Republican politicians and members of Congress have been pushing for cuts. Some Republicans have expressed this view explicitly in recent months. Former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance, has said that cuts to Social Security and Medicare should be “on the table.” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) has referred to such social programs as “fat and garbage … that we can cut.” Other Republicans tacitly support the cuts. Last year, the Republican Study Committee — the largest Republican group in the House, with over 150 members and significant sway over the party’s agenda — released a plan that would increase the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. Raising the eligibility age is not an insignificant proposal with mere incidental effects. Research has found that raising the retirement age to 70 would cut monthly Social Security payments for early retirees by about 15 percent. And people in low-income or blue collar jobs would see their retirements cut the most, as those populations have a lower life expectancy, meaning that they would enjoy even fewer years of retirement. Perhaps the most salient point illustrating Republicans’ and conservatives’ disinterest in “saving” Social Security, however, is the fact that the other solution to Social Security solvency — increasing the amount of money going in to the program, rather than decreasing the amount going out — seems to be off the table for much of the party.

Social Security reform is no longer in vogue these days, even on the right. Across the political spectrum, ignoring the program's fiscal challenges and design flaws is now taken to be politically astute. It isn't hard to see why: Turning a blind eye to problems that can only be addressed by expending political capital has short-term appeal. Being irresponsible is easy — until it comes time to pay the price. While we ignore the program's ills, that price keeps growing. Social Security's finances continue to worsen, as has the overall fiscal capacity of the federal government. Labor markets and social and demographic conditions continue to diverge from the assumptions that originally underpinned the program, and policymakers continue to miss opportunities to build considerable savings for the poor through financial markets. But the past few years were not wasted entirely. I served as deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy at the Social Security Administration (SSA) from July 2017 through January 2021, where my colleagues and I were able to develop some ideas, data, and research to inform future reform efforts and strengthen Social Security. Our research reveals that Social Security plays a relatively smaller role in the financial security of older Americans than commonly thought, making reform easier from a policy perspective, if not politically. No such reform is remotely likely in the Biden era. Would-be reformers should use this time to prepare the ground for essential arguments to come. It is worthwhile, therefore, to review the design and fiscal condition of Social Security, account for the changing character of retirement security in America, and consider a potential path for, and the nature of, reform.

, we discussed the need to decouple livelihood security from wage labor by implementing a public job guarantee coupled with a shortening of the work week, a living wage policy, and a universal care income. However, such a discussion on reorganizing social security within a degrowth context often brings up the inevitable question: how do you propose to pay for all this when rich nations can’t grow anymore?

In this article, I will explore this question by walking you through some insights on deficit-financed state expenditure (or public debt) that a new macroeconomic theory called , offers.

Despite the many fears of agroterrorism, such attacks are uncommon and rarely cause significant damage when they do occur. The picture would not change greatly even if agroterrorism was broadly defined to include not just attacks on crops and farm animals, but also those aimed at forestry, food processing, and draft animals for use as transport. Nor does the picture change appreciably when the range of violent actors is extended to include state use in armed conflict, covert state terrorist-like attacks, and criminal acts for personal gain. As John Parachini noted in 2003, “There are surprisingly few historical examples of intentional attacks by subnational actors or states against agricultural production and food processing.” 1 Almost all known terrorist attacks on agriculture employing chemical or biological agents have been small scale, consisting of a single attack inflicting limited damage, or multiple small-scale attacks, generally ineffective.

There was only a single significant example of a country attacking agriculture using chemical or biological agents warranting closer examination: the development and employment of herbicides by the United States military before and during the Vietnam War. While the main goal was destroying vegetation giving cover to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, the herbicides also targeted crops used by the Viet Cong to support their operations. Accordingly, this survey of agroterrorism starts with a survey of state programs for attacking agriculture, followed by a short history of the U.S. program to provide insight into the complexities associated with mounting large-scale attacks on agriculture. Although other countries, such as the Soviet Union, certainly devoted effort to agricultural attack capabilities, extensive, publicly available archival records exist only for the U.S. program. Only following that is the incidence of agroterrorism reviewed.

By 2030, immigration is expected to overtake “natural increase,” the net population change from births and deaths, as the largest driver of population growth in the US.10 Yet, even with the recent increases in the share of the US population that is foreign- born, the growth of the foreign-born population itself has slowed significantly since the beginning of the 21st century and is expected to continue progressively slowing over the next three decades.11

Though immigrants to the US tend to cluster in a few locations, immigration has been an important part of recent US growth in many areas of the country. For instance, roughly 45 percent of immigrants in the US live in California, Texas, or New York; and nearly two-thirds of immigrants live in one of twenty different metro areas.12 According to Census Bureau estimates, between April 2010 and July of 2018, immigration was a major contributor to the growth of some of the US’s biggest and fastest growing cities— with positive net migration from abroad accounting for roughly 63 percent of the net population growth in the ten most populous metro areas and 38 percent of the growth in the ten metro areas with the greatest numeric population increase.13 However, immigrants have also been an important factor in reducing or preventing population loss in otherwise declining areas throughout the country. Over that same 2010 to 2018 period, the Census Bureau estimates that thirty-six metro areas and nine states would have lost population but for positive net migration from abroad.14 Even in the three states that declined in population over that period—Connecticut, Illinois, and West Virginia—immigration helped substantially limit population loss.15

In the absence of comprehensive federal action, individual states sought to expand access to retirement savings options in recent years. California, Illinois and Oregon have all created auto-IRA programs in which employers who do not already offer a retirement savings plan must facilitate through payroll deduction the ability of their workers to save using the state program. Workers are automatically enrolled at a default contribution level, typically 5%, with the freedom to adjust that contribution level, but workers also can opt out. For some programs, the amount of the contribution made by the worker will automatically increase by 1% each year — a process known as “auto-escalation.” Many businesses do not offer their workers retirement savings plans because they find them too costly and complex to administer, so the state programs are designed to take the burden and cost off employers.

Collectively, these early-stage state programs have accumulated more than $188 million in new retirement savings. And businesses have embraced them: Josh Allison of Reach Break Brewing Company in Astoria, Oregon told OregonSaves that the state’s savings program “helps us recruit solid workers and helps us retain those solid workers.” Programs that require employee participation have been far more successful than ones that rely on voluntary participation, like the retirement marketplace in Washington.

However, that the most aggressive ideas about cutting pensions are unwise does not mean that nothing should be done. States should reform their constitutional debt limitations to include pension underfunding, which would be consistent with the suggestions in Chapter 8 about accrual accounting. They should probably not create statutory liens for general obligation bondholders of the type discussed in Chapters 5 and 9. But they should also repeal the most aggressive constitutional protections for pensions.

The case for debt limit reform is straightforward enough. There is extensive debate about whether debt limits make any sense at all, as they limit the ability of governments to borrow and make investments. But if there are going to be debt limits (or balanced budget rules), there is no reason to exclude from those limits all obligations governments undertake and cannot easily ignore. As long as pensions are protected by state constitutions, underfunding pensions should be understood as debt.

With the 2019 legislative season starting in most states, some states are discussing whether to raise personal income tax rates on their highest-income households (sometimes called a “millionaires’ tax”) to help fund schools, infrastructure, and other public investments. Our  shows why that makes sense.

Targeted income tax hikes at the top can generate significant revenues for states to invest in their long-term success — without harming their ability to grow their economies and create jobs in the short term.

The core findings still hold—state policy in recent years has become more ideologically driven and there is a growing tendency to strip authority away from urban population centers. But the report’s prognosis is far more hopeful as the country will now enter a critical phase in which federalism demands a serious and intentional revision. Once we emerge from the current public health catastrophe there will be a need to revise fiscal outlooks, government relationships and partnerships.

America’s future will depend on refashioning and getting the balance right—clearly, fairly and effectively distributing authority and strengthening the bond between government levels that has frayed in recent years